The growth of SEO since past few years has been mind blowing. It has moved away from some petty “short cuts” to attract search engines to real meaningful optimisation of websites that can benefit the customers. One such method is to use social networking which is becoming synonymous with Internet nowadays. We know that any web user today has an account in one social networking website or the other, be it personal or professional.

It is impossible to say exactly when social networking began to be used for web marketing. However, going by the current trends we can anticipate an overwhelming use of social media for SEO and online marketing. The relevance of social networking to SEO falls on the fact that like the search engines social networking also prioritizes on the latest and most interesting and relevant information.

So how can you use social networking effectively for your SEO?
1. Well, the first pre requisite is of course an active profile in different social networking websites like Facebook, My Space, LinkedIn, Digg, etc.
2. Next is to add the link of your website in this profile. This way the people who visit your profile would click the link and reach your website. But this is not where your work ends, in fact, this is just the beginning.
3. You need to have an active presence here and keep in constant touch with your friends here, who would mostly be your new or existing customers. To remain engaged with your customers you need to post latest news regarding your business. The social networking websites are an effective platform to advertise your latest products, events and offers. Soon you’ll find your customers adding your website link to their bookmarking websites and blogs, thus providing you quality back links and consequently elevating your position in the search engines.
4. Besides promoting your website in the search engines, social networking gives you an excellent way to promote your business, that too absolutely free. They give you instant and direct feedback through customer comments and thus make your website popular and well-known.

The catch phrase here is ‘never give up’. The profile that you have created here and the friends and contacts you make are to remain for a long time. You might find the results slow but highly beneficial in the long run. However, the slow pace is negligible considering the fact that publicity you get is without any cost.